


A Song From the Wrong Side of Town

by Mortissimo



Series: And the World Will Live as One [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Original Character(s), Other, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Pseudoscience, Wraith (Stargate)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 05:03:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortissimo/pseuds/Mortissimo
Summary: Two wraith work through the past cruelties inflicted on them, to drag the people who had betrayed them into a better future.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read the books and I'm not likely to, though I use some wraith names from them.

It was winter around the ring. When Scholar stepped through with Ronon and Sheppard, Lastlight and the Athosians were already there, hard-eyed and square-jawed, clothing blowing with the snow in the wind. For all that wraith tended not to mind the cold, he began immediately to regret turning down more gear in addition to the grey uniform, boots and a radio. Scholar strode forward, ignoring the muttered protestations of the humans behind him. He'd said his goodbyes to Ronon earlier, in the human's room and away from prying eyes and cameras. It still ached a little to walk but he suspected that was deliberate, and it would fade with time. The creatures flanking the wraith and Teyla Emmagan did not react visibly as Scholar drew closer, betraying a lack of concern for either their master or Scholar. He met Teyla's eyes first, and nearly balked at the rage in them. Even though it was not directed at him, he felt his shoulders curl under the weight of it, and he paused to bow to her the greeting she deserved. When he straightened, it was to the feeling of her brushing past him without a second look, which was not inappropriate queen behavior. With effort, he let himself forget her, and at last locked eyes with Lastlight. 

Lastlight bowed first, to Scholar's surprise, the median bow of one commander to another who outranked him. Carefully, Scholar returned the gesture to a matched degree, rather than the shallower acknowledgment which would have marked an acceptance of Lastlight's submission to him. When Scholar met them again, Lastlight's eyes were full of something that hurt to look at. 

" _ Scholar _ ," Lastlight hissed, and it was the first time he'd heard his own name spoken aloud in half a century. Scholar shuddered, not unpleasantly.

" _ Lastlight _ ." Scholar walked forward to the sound of the ring dialing, turned back at the sound of the event horizon expanding. Ronon went through without another glance, which Scholar had expected, but Teyla Emmagan did turn and nod to him, regally, before she disappeared, leaning on Sheppard. Then the event horizon disappeared, and Scholar was left staring at an expanse of howling winter. A touch to his mouth brought him back to Lastlight, who withdrew his hand as quickly as though Scholar had bitten him. 

" _ I've never seen an exile alive before, _ " Lastlight admitted. 

" _ I've never seen a wraith with whole hands. _ " Expectantly, Scholar held out his own and smiled. Lastlight stared. " _ May I see? _ " Slowly, Lastlight laid his hands palm-up in Scholar's, and at last his guards reacted, to some unknown depth of anxiety Lastlight was feeling, by adjusting their weapons and scowling. Before he thought about what he was doing, Scholar smoothed his thumbs down the centers of Lastlight's palms. The young wraith trembled under his touch, but of course it would be rude to apologize, so Scholar let himself look instead. The centers of Lastlight's palms weren't whole, exactly—his right had a thin seam running down the center, like a scar long since healed, if wraith scarred. Scholar absently ran his thumbnail along the line, then startled when Lastlight made a strangled noise in response. Dropping Lastlight's hands, he backed away, but Lastlight mostly looked chagrined. 

" _ Is it very sensitive?"  _ Scholar asked.

" _ It  _ wasn't _ , _ " Lastlight protested vehemently. Scholar laughed, he thought kindly, but he could feel Lastlight growing more uncomfortable.

" _ Is your ship near? _ " The tension in Lastlight eased tangibly.

" _ No. In orbit around another planet. _ " Lastlight led, and Scholar followed, under the apparently careless presence of the hybrid guards. For all that his guards were not ideologically loyal, they seemed programmed to accept Lastlight as their queen, something which made Scholar acutely uncomfortable. It was as though Lastlight had managed to combine the worst of humanity—simmering hostility—with the worst of the wraith—blind obedience. They followed through the ring three times, the speed of the passing ecosystems momentarily throwing Scholar off his guard, stooping his spine and flexing his claws. When Lastlight turned to look at him, puzzled, Scholar made an effort to straighten, but all he could feel was eyes on his back. 

" _ I ran _ ," he explained, and Lastlight nodded as though he understood.

" _ The Lanteans captured you? _ " 

" _ They rescued me _ ." Lastlight frowned, baffled, but said nothing. 

 

Lastlight's hive ship was dark and flickering, a barely sentient and barely functioning mammoth of a ship. Scholar wanted to scream when he crossed the threshold, inside his first hive ship in half a century. It should have felt like a homecoming, but the poor thing was as sick and lonely as her pilot and his crew. The hybrids vanished into the bowels of the ship at a command from Lastlight, who led Scholar through the dim passageways to the bridge. For all that humans usually showed such diversity—unlike the wraith—the humans here looked much like the guards. It made Scholar a little ill—he couldn't imagine what it had done to Teyla. 

"Changed your mind?" The question was soft, soaked in bitter hesitation. Scholar had indeed been apart from wraith too long, long enough he had apparently forgotten how to guard himself around one. 

"Cemented my resolve," he told Lastlight truthfully. Far from scaring him off, the ship and hybrids served as examples of the pain and the power of a truly solitary wraith. The screams he'd been hearing in his dreams were only closer and louder, now that he was near Lastlight. Scholar wondered if Lastlight even realized he was so loud. A hybrid brushed past and Scholar caught his sleeve, rubbing the texture of the fabric between thumb and forefinger. There was an ache in him that demanded touch, never mind the look the hybrid was giving him. 

"Scholar." He turned, at the steel in Lastlight's voice, and dropped the hybrid's sleeve. Lastlight looked alarmed. "All of the hybrids are– Are poisoned. You can't feed on them."

"I wasn't going to," Scholar protested, puzzled, until he felt a tugging at his other hand and saw the hybrid's fingers wrapped around his wrist, his claws embedded in the hybrid's leather armor. He let go immediately and the hybrid backed away, fear the first real emotion Scholar had seen in any of their eyes. "I'm sorry," he told the hybrid, but the hybrid didn't respond. 

"How long?"

"Five weeks." There was a sharp hiss from Lastlight. Neither of them needed further explanation. 

"I'd give you the Gift if I could." Lastlight stopped himself, but it had been said, for all that even he seemed a little startled by the admission. 

"Would you allow me to take it?" Scholar phrased it as neutrally as he could, reined in all the spikes of his hunger and the encompassing folds of his protective streak, and tried to ask merely as a question. It was difficult, between wraith. Neither was what he asked simple. There were wraith who loved for centuries but would only trust their lovers to give, and not to take. 

_ yes. _ The answer was silent but unmistakably sincere, spoken with all of the  _ yes _ ness that words couldn't express alone. How truly awful it was to feel that lonely. 

"I can find another way," Scholar began, but Lastlight shook his head. 

"No. Come with me." Lastlight led Scholar through the narrow corridors, his presence almost magnetic now that he had promised the chance to feed. As Scholar expected, Lastlight had taken the queen's chambers in the heart of the ship for his own, though Scholar was relieved to find his fear was not realized—there were no hybrids waiting for their master. The bed was heaped with blankets, most worn to rags, and unkempt. Beside it, Lastlight turned, his brow set but his eyes and the thin line of his mouth showing his nervousness. Scholar crowded him against its side, taking Lastlight's right hand and smoothing out the fingers so he could press their palms together. There was no answering kiss, of course, but Lastlight shuddered and dug his other claws into Scholar's shoulder, hanging on as though he felt it just as keenly. Scholar bent and bit carefully at Lastlight's brow, at his jawline. 

    Lastlight drew Scholar onto the bed, laying back with Scholar's braid coiling neatly beside him. Scholar pulled his hand away from Lastlight's, to faint noises of displeasure. As Scholar's hands worked their way down the clasps of Lastlight's coat, there was a startling flare of pain as Lastlight bit into Scholar's shoulder, straight through the thin Lantean cloth. Scholar snarled in answer and dug his claws into the skin above Lastlight's heart. His fingers flexed, his whole body aching for Lastlight, but Scholar made himself hold back, though he asked through gritted teeth. 

"May I?" He ground out, as below him Lastlight opened dazed eyes to stare. 

" _ Take me _ ," Lastlight hissed. 

Scholar let the joining complete. 

 

Lastlight was a young wraith, younger even than Scholar had expected from the wild swirl of his emotions, and of course he hadn't taken a life in a while, so Scholar didn't dare take very much from him. As it was, he still took a bit too much to begin with, had to feed it back in drips as Lastlight gasped and arched under him, until they reached a sort of equilibrium. Scholar seemed to have lost the knack for it, at any rate. He hadn't had a wraith lover in–

Scholar detached his hand too quickly, leaving Lastlight wincing as he rubbed at the slowly closing wound on his chest. 

"What was that?" Lastlight asked finally. Scholar stared up at the ceiling. 

"There is something I do not wish to make myself remember." Unsure, Lastlight patted his wrist and stood to go, but Scholar caught his arm and dragged him back down, wrapped Lastlight up tight in his arms and held on. His own misfortune, whatever shape it took, was no excuse for alienating Lastlight. Especially after what he'd seen. "Stay," Scholar muttered, and Lastlight did.


	2. Chapter 2

         When Scholar awoke, he was alone in Lastlight's pile of rags, but he could feel the presence of the young wraith across the ship, as clearly as if Scholar had been beside him. It was simple enough to find him on the bridge, with the hive ship's standard if dilapidated form. The hybrids around Lastlight did not look up from their stations, evidently having been told not to regard Scholar as a threat. The wraith himself turned to Scholar and smiled, uncertain and hopeful, looking every one of his very few years.

         “I left a coat for you,” Lastlight said, glancing over Scholar's arms, over the flash of throat visible above the half zip of the human uniform. More than prudishness, Scholar could feel Lastlight's discomfort lay in his distraction, and in his sympathy for his poor half-dressed companion. Scholar fought back a grin.

         “I did not see it,” he answered honestly. Lastlight's room had been something of a cluttered mess, likely an attempt to assuage loneliness with objects. “I feel fine, thank you. Better than fine.” _unless you find me an unbearable distraction._ Helplessly, Scholar grinned, then laughed, as Lastlight turned back to his console in a flurry of embarrassed typing. The hybrids remained locked to their consoles, which Scholar found more unnerving the longer it persisted. 

_i apologize if i make you uneasy,_ he added after a moment, and Lastlight's hands stilled.

         “We should start work on the retrovirus project then, if you're better.” _i don't think i have it in me to be teased_. It had been too long since either of them had been close with one of their own, clearly. The back of Lastlight's hand brushed Scholar's as he swept out of the bridge, and Scholar felt an answering pulse to the burst of affection he tried to convey. So there was that, at least. Scholar followed Lastlight into the bowels of the ship, trying to keep his focus on the wraith ahead of him, and not on the distress of the ship, at least as lonely as her captain. Even the walls seemed to sag, their webbing thin and lank. Far away but constant, there was the sound of irregular dripping. Patches were too hot and too cold, but rarely what Scholar found comfortable, and of all this nothing was as unnerving as the ship's sheer emptiness. There wasn't even the soft buzz of the sleeping charges of a slumbering hive. Only silence and the ship's despair. 

 

          Lastlight proved to be a brilliant engineer and a truly terrible teacher. More out of a lack of expected help than a drive for secrecy, his notes, when they existed, were so terse and abbreviated that they felt like trying to read an alien language. His background in shipbuilding and maintenance had proved useful only because of the commonality of the wraith genome and their close cousins at the core of their hives. Anything more complex, like manipulating that genome, appeared to be self-taught, and applied with all the grace of a fusion bomb.

         “You accomplished the erasure of the feeding apparatus by deactivating chunks of your genetic code in simulation until you found one you thought might work? And then you tried them until one stuck?” Lastlight stared back as though he'd been issued a challenge.

         “It worked, didn't it?” Offended, he held up his right palm, close enough to Scholar's face to block most of his vision. Scholar pulled it carefully aside.

         “Your bravery is incredible, but from your, for lack of a better word, ‘notes,’ I cannot even tell which of the changes was effective, or if your results were from a combination of all of them.” Lastlight turned abruptly on his heel, doubtless to storm off, but Scholar refused to relinquish the hand in his grasp and turned Lastlight to face him again. _your bravery is incredible,_ he repeated, bending to touch their foreheads together. Lastlight's eyes slid shut. 

          _no one would help me,_ came soft and plaintive. 

          _i'm here now._ The Lanteans had made Lastlight as alone as any runner or exile, and in answer Lastlight had learned to turn his own genome into the weapon he needed to survive. Betrayed by every people he tried to shelter in, Lastlight had built his own people. Scholar hated the method, but he understood the need. Maybe he could use that to convince the rest of his two-being hive someday. 

         “For how long?” Lastlight's eyes were open now, closer and narrow in the dim light.

         “Until the work is done.” _until we have a home to go to._

          _atlantis?_ Lastlight was incredulous, his thoughts laced with the memory of fear, betrayal and pain. “You want to go back there?” _you expect me to?_

“I have family there. And I think you may too, if you and they can work on your trust issues.” At that, Lastlight pulled fully away, staring wounded at Scholar. 

         “After everything they've done to me?” Throat-strikes and gunshots and, worst of all, the tight fist around his heart even now. Scholar answered Lastlight with Teyla's deadly flashing eyes.

         “After everything you've done to one another. Yes.” After a moment of hesitation, Scholar released the stranglehold he'd been keeping his thoughts of Ronon under, letting the memories of stolen moments and the warmth of his hands rise to the surface. To his dismay, though not his surprise, Lastlight recoiled.

         “You think because he'd fuck one wraith, he'd so much as tolerate another? He argued the loudest for my death.” Scholar struggled to keep a straight face under the pressure of Lastlight's palpable fear. He was backing away too, further from Scholar's reach.

         “I have to believe they've learned from their mistakes, just like I have to believe you and I want the same peace.” Scholar held out his right hand, imploring, until Lastlight stopped and reached out to brush Scholar's fingertips with his own.

          _i'm so tired of running._ The claws in Lastlight's heart stole Scholar's breath, but Lastlight took Scholar's hand anyway, slowly, palm to palm in what would have been a kiss from any other wraith. 

         “Trust me to find a home, or make one.” _as much as anywhere can be home without my guide._ Scholar wasn't sure where the thought like lightning intruded from, opened his mouth to apologize, but Lastlight shook his head and tightened his grip. 

         “You'll have to explain that later.” _i can feel how much it hurts you now._ Scholar stroked a thumb along the back of Lastlight's and released him, touch trailing to the very last. 

         “There will be time,” Scholar promised, and meant every word. Surely someday what he'd done, and to whom, would return to him.


	3. Chapter 3

         He did try to comfort the ship's loneliness as well. It had been about a week in which, when he did sleep, he woke up halfway to the ship's core more often than he did beside Lastlight. Lastlight had posted guards, which he claimed plausibly was more for Scholar's safety than for security, but their vacant gazes were simple enough for a seasoned runner to evade, and evade them Scholar did. His bare feet made no sound as he lowered himself down from the maintenance hatch and into the corridor beyond the guards. Here in the depths of the ship, the floor was as warm as fevered skin, and gave ever so slightly under Scholar's feet. He kept one hand on the wall as he went on, as much out of a sickened fascination as anything else. The neural wiring here hung in limp loops, and clung with an unhealthy stickiness to Scholar's fingertips as he passed by. 

         When he turned the last corner to the ship's core, he found the hatches not so much open as unmoored, sitting askew like they'd been carved from a rotting gourd. The air was too humid, and carried with it a smell like starved algae. In the ship's central pit, the core hung wrapped in her web of wires and neural links, her many legs twitching and many eyelids closed in the eternal sleep of the hive ship. There was a soft, distant groaning from one of the mouths Scholar could not see. 

_ i'm sorry, _ he told her sincerely, and shivered at the echo he got in answer. At the touch of his hand on one of the massive, sweating arteries disappearing into the walls of the central chamber, Scholar watched an undulation ripple across the core's form. The skin under his palm parted with gangrenous ease to his feeding apparatus, and as he fed the core a moment, the barest due of a hive crewman and as much as he could spare, the core's eyes winked open and shut at him in an expanding ripple that disappeared into the other side of her mammoth bulk. When he pulled his hand away, there were shreds of skin clinging to Scholar's palm, and a sickly bruise on her, where none should have stayed. 

         “I tried to feed her myself.” Lastlight's voice was a sudden drop of cold water in the fetid dark, his mind soft with hurt.  _ i wasn't enough. she stopped taking from me.  _ Scholar couldn't look at him. 

         “How did you take her in the first place?” Not all ships were loyal, but the course this one had been chosen for was clearly the end for her. It would take more than a miracle to make her shine. 

         “She was decommissioned. Slated for recycling.”  _ like me, she had outlived her purpose.  _ Scholar did look then, as Lastlight brushed past him to begin a careful slide into the central pit. He moved, to Scholar's surprise, with the ease that only came traveling a well worn path. When he slowed to a stop, it was with an upraised hand on the lowest-hanging of the core's feet, swollen and purpled. 

         “It must take a great deal for her to fly.”

         “Yes.” A droplet of moisture rolled down Lastlight's face, though Scholar couldn't tell if it was sweat or tears or some other leak, from the wraith or the core. “I think picking you up was her last brush with a gravity well. Darts at medium range from here on out.” The core shuddered and Lastlight patted the nearest hand within reach. 

         “She must love you,” Scholar observed, almost too soft to be heard beneath the wearied groans of the ship's core.  _ i see your love and i'm sorry i doubted it.  _

_ don't be. i know what i'm doing and i know it's not kind.  _ Lastlight released the hand in his grasp and turned to the nearest ladder out of the pit as its fingers trailed twitching after him. “Not much longer now, I don't think.”

         “No.” Not with the Lantean doctors’ notes, and not with Scholar beside him. As he neared the top of the ladder, Scholar reached down to steady him, and Lastlight took Scholar's hands readily to pull himself up the last few steps. 

_ are you repulsed by me yet? _ The question was so quiet as to be nearly subliminal, but its hesitation could belong to nobody but Lastlight. 

         “No,” Scholar said again, with an echoing  _ no _ , and pulled Lastlight into his arms and away from the central pit. 


	4. Chapter 4

         As they worked together, the feeling of unease from the ship never went away, though Scholar supposed he got used to it eventually. That, and the creeping horror of what had been done to the Athosians, were all that kept Scholar from losing himself entirely in Lastlight. So for that Scholar supposed he should be something like grateful. Lastlight was just still such a beacon of need, even with Scholar beside him. Scholar could not fill the void left by the betrayal of two races. 

         It was slow going at first, between Lastlight's practical understanding but technical ignorance, and Scholar's half-feral half-century. They argued, of course, and not every argument was resolved kindly, but the partnership persisted. It was familiar to Scholar, almost nostalgic, until he'd hand off half of an inside joke and realize too late it was left hanging in the bewildered space between them. He spent far less time in a trance, with more to engage his mind than he'd been left with on Atlantis, though Scholar still awoke occasionally to Lastlight's worried face and the awkward space after a question that had gone unanswered. Here on a wraith ship, beside another of his kind, the echoes of the emptiness beside him were more maddening than they'd been all his years on the run. Lastlight was usually too polite and desperate for company to mention it, but Scholar could see the implied absence grate on his nerves. 

         “All right, what is it?” Lastlight asked finally, turning his console aside and staring defiantly at the side of Scholar's head. 

         “What is what,” Scholar returned absently, glancing up from his screen. Lastlight's expression was grim, his mind locked tight with anxiety. Gradually, it dawned on Scholar that he'd been singing half a duet under his breath. 

         “I'm the third party in a room alone with you. I know I said I'd wait for you to tell me, but it's like I'm not even here.”  _ is it Dex?  _ Scholar shook his head, slowly, and turned away from his monitor as well. 

         “I don't think I can explain exactly…”

         “Perhaps if you explain  _ inexactly _ , the rest will come to you.” While Scholar cast about for the right words to something he couldn't see head-on, he could feel the edges of Lastlight's concern bleeding into frustration. 

         “It isn't Ronon.” While they learned to fight back to back like dancers, there was never a time they would have grown to anticipate each other's movements across the lab, like Scholar and his invisible partner. And while that was a profound infatuation, it was recent, and marked already by long absences. Not like they'd been. The two of them had rarely been apart for millennia, awake or asleep. One passionless and one rudderless, they'd learned to support one another's weakness and rely on one another's strengths. 

         “ _ Scholar _ .” He was starting to get used to that, the edge of desperation the fifth or sixth time Lastlight called his name.

         “I'm sorry. I cannot recall.” How could he forget? Scholar blinked and shook his head fiercely to clear the webs, dislodging the braid over his shoulder.  _ i think i killed the most important person.  _ “I think there used to be more of me?” No, that wasn't it. Someone beside him was beginning to panic. 

         “You don't have to–”

         “The beacon that led me home, I don't…” Now that he thought about it, really thought about it, Scholar could almost see a face, could almost hear laughter, feel the context in which he made sense.  _ i killed you. i'm sorry.  _ They took him, and the brightest star in the sky died. Scholar's hands shook badly. He could hear the sound of his own sharp breathing.  _ how did you die i don't remember i can't–  _

         Pain blossomed in his lower lip, and the lab snapped back into focus around him with a sharpness like dropping out of hyperspace. There was a hand on the back of his head and one at the small of his back, both curled tight to dig in the edge of claws. There was a low table behind him, pushing against the backs of his thighs, and a wraith before him, pressed in so close there was no space left between them. There were wide, terrified eyes on his, near enough to brush eyelashes, and there was Lastlight's mouth on his, hard and scared and sharp-toothed. 

_ come back,  _ Lastlight's mind pleaded.  _ come back to me, i'm sorry.  _

_ i'm here.  _ Scholar even almost meant it, his eyes open and spine curved down to remind him of where ‘here’ was, of who was here. Of who wasn't. He uncurled his hands at Lastlight's waist and shifted from a desperate hold into an embrace, chasing Lastlight's mouth when he tried to pull back, angling into the caution of wraith kissing like humans. It had been a long while since he'd last had to navigate two sets of wraith teeth like this, and he could feel the warm ease of the last time tugging at his memory. The last fading sparks of Lastlight's terror grounded him in the moment as much as the slick slide of tongue and lips and sharp, sharp teeth. At last, Lastlight sagged against him with a soft trill, low in his throat, and Scholar pulled back just far enough to breathe a moment. 

         “I'm sorry,” Lastlight murmured, and Scholar shook his head, pressed a kiss into Lastlight's odd short hair. 

         “When I can tell you, I will tell you. Tomorrow or in a hundred years.” When Lastlight tilted his chin up, Scholar saw no reason not to kiss him again on the mouth, to taste the noises Lastlight made at the prick of Scholar's claws on his back. 

_ i think i like this.  _ Even Lastlight's thoughts came across breathless. 

         “I'll tell you what,” Scholar muttered against Lastlight's skin, grazed the threat of his teeth over Lastlight's bottom lip.  _ i'm going to keep trying things, and you can let me know if there's something you don't.  _

         It felt strange, to play guide to someone else. Backwards. Lastlight was beautiful though, grasping hands and ragged gasps. He was yet too young for tattoos, but his skin was scarred like no wraith's should be, like Scholar's would be someday if they could find a workaround for the treatment. 

_ i wish you could be here too _ , Scholar thought helplessly, as Lastlight drifted off with his head pillowed on Scholar's chest.  _ you'd be able to show me the way.  _


	5. Chapter 5

         It took three months, in the end, for Scholar to tease out which of Lastlight's many genetic alterations had allowed an end to his hunger. Reports back to Atlantis were sporadic and one-sided; Lastlight was leery of broadcasting the hive's meandering position, to the Lanteans or the wraith, and getting too close to a planetary body put more strain on the ship than he felt was wise. It didn't seem efficient to wander from spacebound ring to spacebound ring, but the short hops through hyperspace and well out of atmosphere seemed at least to keep the ship from degrading any further. So they traveled, and Scholar sent terse radio messages through the rings to Atlantis, and they worked. Scholar took from Lastlight when he was too hungry to think any longer, and fed it back bit by bit in bed. His episodes decreased in frequency with Lastlight's abruptly ended prodding, and eventually the answer just. Became clear.

         Scholar, of course, assumed he would be testing the edited retrovirus first on himself, and was startled when Lastlight disagreed vehemently. 

         “There was no going back for me already.”  _ mutant. ruined.  _ “You don't yet know what this is going to do to you.”  _ as human as wraith, should have lost, should have stayed behind.  _ Scholar gingerly laid a hand on Lastlight's, battered by the barrage of anxiety he was sure Lastlight didn't know he was projecting. 

         “This is where we were always going. The simulations are fine eight times out of ten. That's nearly certainty.” The objections did seem more than a little hypocritical, Scholar thought, but now didn't seem to be the time for that argument. 

         “We weren't always going to skip live testing.”  _ Ah, _ Scholar thought. Gently, he patted the back of Lastlight's hand and then withdrew his own. 

         “Yes, actually. We were.” Lastlight stared wordlessly, even his telepathic catastrophizing silenced for a moment. Scholar smiled. “I refuse to experiment on unwilling subjects. Out of anyone in the galaxy, I would assume you'd appreciate that most.” A frown furrowed Lastlight's brow, but didn't quite stop him from looking more scared than angry. 

         “I can't let you do this. What if I can't fix whatever happens?” This was not the moment to kiss a problem away, which was unfortunate, because Scholar's conflict resolution skills were either extreme or nonexistent. 

         “It is not your choice to make.”

         “It's my fault if something happens to you.”  _ bug monsters. amnesiac humans.  _

         “It's not.” Scholar did reach out then, helplessly, but for the first time Lastlight jerked backwards, out of his reach. 

         “Tell it to Atlantis. Tell your Ronon it's not my fault you died because of an untested gene therapy.”  _ tell teyla please tell teyla it's not my fault.  _ “See what your  _ friends  _ do to me then.”  _ i'm going to die alone don't let me die alone don't leave me i love you– _

         “Lastlight.” Finally, Scholar gave into his impulse and lunged forward, trapping Lastlight in an embrace that was probably a few shades too tight to be comfortable. “I will be fine. Atlantis knew I was going to test on myself. If something goes wrong, we can fix it.” Lastlight's panic was a visible force, sparking bright lights in the corners of Scholar's vision.  _ you won't be alone again. _

         Eventually, Lastlight's trembling subsided, and Scholar felt Lastlight slump boneless against him. He could still feel Lastlight's mind rushing a mile a minute, but it was nothing on the strobing panic of before. He loosened his grip enough for Lastlight to take a step back, and Lastlight did, Scholar's hands sliding to his elbows. 

         “I'll be fine.”  _ i'll be here. _ Slowly, shakily, Lastlight raised his eyes to meet Scholar's, and nodded. 

         “Let's do it.” Still moving jerkily with adrenaline, Lastlight turned to his console and brought up a starmap on the main projection array. The red dots were few and far between enough that, at first, Scholar wasn't sure he was looking at a map of anything in particular. 

         “What is this?” He asked, trailing a hand through the stars until he found the blinking dot, pale and barely moving.  _ There you are, Scholar. Figure out where you are and everything else will fall into place.  _ It had the tenor of another voice, and Scholar dropped his hand regretfully. 

         “The red dots are my labs. Or where they were last I checked. I don't know how many the Lanteans have missed, but I can check–”

         “No,” Scholar interrupted. Slow and dreamlike, in counterpoint to the leftover pounding of his pulse, he watched his hand as though it belonged to someone else, as it lifted and pointed to a close white dot. “We are practically there already. One of mine. We never used it.” He glanced over his shoulder. Lastlight stared dubiously. 

         “Are you sure? I don't recognize that world. We're pretty far from my former hive's hunting grounds, and a lot can change in fifty years.” Scholar laughed.

         “Yes, I'm certain. The people of this world were much more than fifty years away from posing any kind of threat, and besides that they were always renowned throughout the sector for their friendliness.”  They'd met with some of the locals, Scholar remembered. The humans had seemed so welcoming, even to a pair of wraith. “‘Locus,’ they call their world.” The natives had an unrelated name for themselves, which Scholar couldn't quite recall. 

         “It’ll still have everything we need?” Lastlight was beginning to sound well and truly convinced, which didn't go far toward explaining why Scholar's pulse was still racing.

         “I am sure. It was a full gene editing lab meant to service hundreds over generations. It was never even fully activated, and we were  _ very _ good at hiding our work.” How many caches and labs were left, Scholar wondered, and how much of their legacy was written only in blood? Lastlight's anxiety was still buzzing like a small insect between Scholar's ears, and he tried to put it out of his mind. “We should be able to avoid the locals entirely. I think they were particularly incurious.”

         “All right,” Lastlight said finally. “I'll lay in a course. We should be in dart range in thirteen hours.” Thirteen hours. Scholar smiled and ran his fingers through the stars one last time before the map disappeared. Lastlight was looking at him strangely, but turned to go without a word. After a moment, Scholar followed.


	6. Chapter 6

          In the dart over the planet, Scholar tried his best to fight back a visible cringe. From the HUD readouts, the villages on the surface had been culled with extreme prejudice recently, and though they picked up some flashes of movement among the ruins, on their short trip Scholar couldn't see anything like a rebuilding effort.

         “What happened here?” Scholar wondered aloud. The lakeside cliff they had set their lab into didn't look to have been disrupted at all, but the people of Locus had seemed far too innocent to do anything themselves to earn such an extreme response. Perhaps this was the way of the wraith now that so many were awake at once.

         “I don't know. I was never really in the loop, and now I'm even further out of it.” Lastlight's odd mood had persisted throughout the remainder of the day and, so far, through the descent to the surface. He was snappy, brittle, and the remainder of his anxiety kept Scholar on edge as well.

         “I suppose it makes our lives easier if there isn't anyone to find us here.” Lastlight didn't respond as they touched down in a small clearing. As he climbed out, Scholar tried unsuccessfully to suppress a shudder. There was something about the smell of the trees and the sink of the loam under his boots that tugged on his memory, back toward his running years and before. Even the stars in the night sky felt ominous, like cold and remote watchers. Before Lastlight could turn to question him, Scholar began to pick his way through the trees to the lake and the cliffs, to the tune of the local nocturnal fauna.

         The cliff face itself seemed even taller up close, a bit too far from the water's edge to be a good jumping-off point for the locals in the waning summer heat. Scholar stopped within arm's reach and began to slowly pace down its length, keeping his claws a spare inch from the surface of the rock. It had been a long time, after all, and his memory was less than perfect.

         “What’re you doing?” Lastlight asked as he caught up to Scholar, reaching out to touch the rock Scholar had passed by.

         “It's around here–” At last, Scholar felt that familiar tingle in his claws, and stopped in his tracks before an unremarkable stretch of stone. _we did good work, didn't we?_

         Without waiting for an answer from Lastlight, Scholar stepped forward through the hidden doorway. The air inside was a drastic drop in temperature, and the sudden absence of sound was unnerving to say the least. Then a soft hum broke the silence as the generator a floor below turned over for the first time in fifty years, and the pale green light of the ceiling panels began to click on. Lastlight stepped in a short moment behind and stopped, brought up short by an unexpectedly close Scholar.

         “It's spotless in here,” he mused, clearly impressed. “And the wall… How did you do that?”

         “I can't recall exactly.” They jury-rigged an Alteran artifact, he was more or less certain, but Scholar was equally certain he hadn't been the one to do the work, and he couldn't replicate it. “You will probably understand it better than I did.” With the corridor fully illuminated, Scholar followed it down a slight slope until it opened up into a cavern lined with rows of fabricators and pods, and two consoles side by side. With a few keystrokes, the displays on the consoles flared to life, and the fabricators began to whir through their self-diagnostics.

         “Everything seems to be as we left it.” Ready to go, Scholar meant, as soon as they returned from meeting with the locals. Which they never had. What did the locals call themselves again?

         “I'm still going to hold you to an explanation someday.” Lastlight took the console beside Scholar, and began to familiarize himself with the older systems.

         “Not today.” Scholar's hands shook, almost imperceptibly, as he laid them flat on the console.

         “No.” _not today._

         When the systems were fully online, and Lastlight had finished with his griping about the older model fabricators, and with his subsequent system checks to ensure the 'relics’ (Lastlight's word) were still running appropriately, Scholar ran one last test through his algorithms. Their computers agreed with Lastlight's ship–an eighty percent chance of success without additional trial data one way or the other.

         “It will work,” Scholar assured Lastlight with more confidence than his trembling hands displayed, and at length Lastlight gave a grudging nod. He loaded the nearest fabricator with a syringe as Scholar imported the retrovirus data, and in what felt like both seconds and hours, it was done. The room fell silent but for the hum of the machines as both wraith regarded the innocuous little thing that promised to alter the course of their entire species.

          _are you ever overwhelmed with the enormity of what you're doing?_ Scholar blinked down at Lastlight, whose eyes were still fixed firmly on the syringe.

         “Often. But not lately.” Scholar took the syringe and uncapped it, then frowned down as its needle wove through the air with the subtle and uncontrollable motions of his hand.

         “Are you sure you're sure?” Lastlight took it out of Scholar's hands, his touch lingering on Scholar's skin. This time he did meet Scholar's eyes, his own narrowed and sharp. Scholar was certain he didn't look any less concerned.

         “I'm as certain as I can be.” _please, lastlight._ With tremendous tenderness and focus, Lastlight cupped Scholar's elbow and slid the needle home beneath Scholar's skin. It felt as though the retrovirus spread like an immediate itch under Scholar's skin, and knowing it was largely psychosomatic didn't make it itch any less. Shakily, Scholar exhaled, and when Lastlight met his eyes, both were grinning.

          _kiss me_ , Lastlight whispered, barely conscious of it, and Scholar did, though his pulse was still pounding through his veins


	7. Chapter 7

         They waited a few hours for things to turn sour or not, Scholar trailing through the lab's disused rooms and Lastlight a ball of tension following after. Eventually his curiosity overcame his trepidation and he began to prod at and complain about the facilities. 

         “You do recall we worked with salvaged and scavenged equipment?” Scholar asked over his shoulder at last, though he was still more bemused than offended, and made sure Lastlight felt it. 

         “It would've been kinder to leave most of this junk on the scrap heaps where you found it.” Perhaps. Scholar couldn't really argue. If this worked, if they'd plotted a shortcut to the end of Lastlight's long genetic journey, this facility wouldn't be a good choice for their base of operations. Too much danger to whatever was left of the human populace. The lab on the Sedwins’ planet could be a good choice, abandoned for many more years on a dead world. Or one of Lastlight's facilities. Really, best practice might be to broadcast the alterations and procedure galaxy-wide, and hope no bloodthirsty queens opted to work on an inoculation against the retrovirus instead. 

         “Scholar.” This time, he looked at Lastlight on the first try, Scholar was fairly certain, and Lastlight blinked, startled. 

         “I was considering logistics,” Scholar explained truthfully. 

         “We should get back to the ship before dawn. If it goes bad, we have the stasis chambers and your… Friends.” On Atlantis, Scholar assumed he meant. 

         “It will be fine. But you're right.” Scholar slid off the table he'd been seated on and began his way back toward the cavern entrance. Everything here was set to turn off after a period of disuse, made to be abandoned in a hurry with no need to leave someone behind for a manual shutdown. 

_ The impact of his hand on Scholar's chest as he'd shoved Scholar through the ring ahead of him with a promise he would immediately break, to get away and find Scholar again _ . 

         The sharp delineation back into the summer night shook Scholar out of his reverie. The animal noises that had rung out across the lake when they'd entered the lab had died away, leaving only the lapping of waves on the shore. They had probably waited too long already; the sky above the far side of the lake was beginning to show streaks of pale gold. 

         Neither wraith said a word as they picked up the pace back to the dart. The hammering of Scholar's heart had returned, only he wasn't sure he could blame his anxiety on Lastlight anymore. It was too quiet in the woods. Even in the dark of pre-dawn, there should have been some animal awake. 

        Then a twig snapped, and Scholar glanced aside, with barely a split second to dodge the harpoon that buried itself in the tree behind him. 

_ run _ , they decided together, as humans began to pour out of the trees. Scholar heard the beginning a volley of stunner fire as Lastlight broke for the dart. 

_ i'll lead the rest away, you pick me up. _ Lastlight's agreement was tinged with fear, but it rang out clear enough. With their ambush blown, the humans began to unload their projectile weapons into the night after Scholar. It was a game he had played too often in the last fifty years, of leading the humans on a chase through the firs and the ferns, of staying ahead, but not so far ahead they sought other targets. As a slug slammed gracelessly through Scholar's shoulder, he was forced to concede it was harder to evade teams of local humans than pairs of Hunting wraith. He grit his teeth in a silent snarl against the pain and ran on. 

         At last, Scholar broke through the treeline and stumbled to a stop steps from the cliff's edge.  _ i'm here, _ he told Lastlight, letting him see the bare rock below and the dark wall of the pines, heard the whine of the dart far away veer and begin to close in on him. 

         “Looks like you've run out of road.” Scholar's attention jerked down from the sky, to the trio of soldiers grimly closing on him from the woods, and for the first time, in the rising dawn, Scholar got a good look at their grey and orange uniforms and remembered what the people of this world called themselves. 

         For a moment, it seemed as though time stopped from the sheer force of the icy terror coursing through his veins. 

_ not again. please.  _

_         don't take him too. _

_         not again.  _

         Then, quick and graceful as a bird, the missile arced up through the canopy and into the dart, lighting the morning sky with a blossom of fire. 

         The soldiers cheered, and Scholar went away, and things became very, very fast again, and very bloody. 

**Author's Note:**

> Can you imagine how much easier Atlantis's life would have been if they'd resisted the urge to be a dick to Michael even once?  
> So from here on out I do have a plan, but nothing solid written. I'm going to be switching perspective, and rewatching some of my least favorite episodes.  
> It's going to take me longer than a week, but for perspective, I think I started the first part when the show was still on the air. So. Relatively speaking I've sped up remarkably.  
> I'll go back to Atlantis, I promise.  
> Thank you again for your kind words, seVERITY_97.


End file.
